6 ms·

Ahhh. This is brilliant, I had forgotten how useful this was - especially the compactness. The windows sizing was a bit confused by my 3400x1440 initially, but

Ahhh. This is brilliant, I had forgotten how useful this was - especially the compactness. The windows sizing was a bit confused by my 3400x1440 initially, but once arranged it is very well behaved. The ability to have the one app running which contains multiple file system views that I can arrange internally is awesome. It can certainly help with the cognitive overload that sometimes is my alt tab navigation. I love this new company that Microsoft has become.

dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
> I love this new company that Microsoft has become. I'm not sure if it's sarcasm or not, but there is no "new" Microsoft. Their sole aim is to use all means to crush competition; they will embrace open source when it suits them and doesn't pose any threat. When they work on Linux, they do so to make it easier for people to run Linux instances on their proprietary cloud. They were losing bad on many fronts so some changes were inevitable, but fundamentally nothing changed at all. You can see the fundamental contempt for the user with the telemetry settings in Windows 10, with pushing upgrades to everyone, with ignoring users' settings and so on. Even something as simple as dual-booting is still problematic after so many years: even with Windows 10 you have to still install Linux after Windows. If you install Linux first, Windows will happily overwrite its boot sector. As if Linux didn't exist.
- setquk 9y ago
  Yep. Some comments: 1. Most of the MSFT open source stuff is either trash or completely unmaintained. Only a couple of high profile projects are maintained and they jam opt-out telemetry in if you like it or not (despite hundreds of comments requesting them to go away). Even Scott Hanselman getting involved in one of our tickets got it nowhere. Same strong arming and disregard for customers. 2. Shoehorning your tech on and blurring the lines between platforms is how you keep your tentacles growing. Who the hell wants powershell and SQL Server for Linux? We just want it to work properly on windows rather than having two problem domains. 3. MSFT's marketing and blogging machine is immense now on the level of May's "strong and stable" which is covering up for reduction in QA and enterprise support while prices are climbing and entire product lines are being burned (windows phone) 4. Fingers in ears. They don't listen to customers. The only way forward is tying you into a monthly sub for everything or forcing you to use their tools or platform. Same turd, different coloured glitter.
  - teddywestside 9y ago
    "Most of the MSFT open source stuff is either trash or completely unmaintained." Just google these: Type Script, .Net Core, ASP.NET Core, Visual Studio Code
- mschaef 9y ago
  > I'm not sure if it's sarcasm or not, but there is no "new" Microsoft. Their sole aim is to use all means to crush competition; Show me a business that doesn't want to win, and I'll show you a business that's not long for this world.
  - dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
    That's a fair comment. Most older software companies have disappeared, and the existing ones got so big they tend to misbehave in a similar way (e.g. Adobe). Many of the smaller guys were crushed by Microsoft using its unique position, very often by FUD and other unfair actions. I prefer to support companies that have a moral backbone and criticize those who don't.
    - mschaef 9y ago
      > I prefer to support companies that have a moral backbone and criticize those who don't. What are some of the companies with a moral backbone that you support? I'm genuinely interested to see what that business model looks like in the real world. My own take on Microsoft's historical success in the 80's and 90's is that it's a combination of producing a product people wanted at a time people wanted it (and lack of well formed competition). A state of the art PC in 1991 required separately purchasing an OS, GUI, memory manager, shell, file system utilities, browser, etc. So... while you might argue that it was anticompetitive of Microsoft to bundle these together, there's never been a huge demand for the ability to buy them separately. (Even before Microsoft started bundling all these parts together, the system vendors like Gateway, Micron, and Zeos were doing the bundling for them.)
      - dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
        > What are some of the companies with a moral backbone that you support? I'm genuinely interested to see what that business model looks like in the real world. Out of software companies that survived, Autodesk for example. Most hardware companies - except printer vendors trying to patent/restrict availability of ink cartridges etc. Really, I think it's important to discriminate between fair and unfair business practices. Lumping everything together as "business is business" is harmful to the society especially in the long run.
- deepblue08 9y ago
  That's a very negative way of looking at the world. Using that type of thinking, any company that makes money and would like its products to be more popular is somehow "bad"
  - dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
    What makes a difference is whether you use fair business practices or not. For a very long time Microsoft was engaged in all kinds of shady actions that represent the epitome of corporate greed.
thwarted 9y ago
The ability to have the one app running which contains multiple file system views that I can arrange internally is awesome. It can certainly help with the cognitive overload that sometimes is my alt tab navigation. This is called a multiple-document interface, and it's been Microsoft's preferred method of nesting documents/subwindows within a single application window for a long time — maybe less so with Windows 10 and the "flat" styling. Lack of it was often trotted out as a reason people felt uncomfortable using Linux (and sometimes MacOS) versions of office suites or applications like GIMP (compared to Photoshop, which traditionally used MDI on Windows). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_document_interface https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_document_interface
- laumars 9y ago
  > This is called a multiple-document interface, and it's been Microsoft's preferred method of nesting documents/subwindows within a single application window for a long time Microsoft moved away from MDI in most of their flag ship products (bar Visual Studio) a long time ago. Eg MS Office was last MDI back in '95. Office 97 was SDI from what I recall.
  - badsectoracula 9y ago
    I don't think you can use MDI in Visual Studio anymore, the tabbed interface seems to be the only one available. Although i do remember an IDE (was it Visual Studio?) that could do both MDI and tabs at the same time. Do you consider tabbed interfaces as MDI? I've seen some people do that but i think MDI and tabbed interfaces are too different in terms of functionality to be considered equal.
    - laumars 9y ago
      MDI and tabbed interfaces aren't mutually exclusive but if the master window does not embed resizable child windows (like a traditional MDI interface) then it's not MDI regardless of tabs. I think VS used to be MDI tabbed. It definitely used to be MDI. But I have to admit it's been years since I've last used it. In fact thinking about it now, it's been even longer than I realised (I switched away from Windows development around the time of XP getting released so we're probaby talking close on 15 years. It's scary how fast time flies).

dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago

> I love this new company that Microsoft has become. I'm not sure if it's sarcasm or not, but there is no "new" Microsoft. Their sole aim is to use all means to crush competition; they will embrace open source when it suits them and doesn't pose any threat. When they work on Linux, they do so to make it easier for people to run Linux instances on their proprietary cloud. They were losing bad on many fronts so some changes were inevitable, but fundamentally nothing changed at all. You can see the fundamental contempt for the user with the telemetry settings in Windows 10, with pushing upgrades to everyone, with ignoring users' settings and so on. Even something as simple as dual-booting is still problematic after so many years: even with Windows 10 you have to still install Linux after Windows. If you install Linux first, Windows will happily overwrite its boot sector. As if Linux didn't exist.

setquk 9y ago
Yep. Some comments: 1. Most of the MSFT open source stuff is either trash or completely unmaintained. Only a couple of high profile projects are maintained and they jam opt-out telemetry in if you like it or not (despite hundreds of comments requesting them to go away). Even Scott Hanselman getting involved in one of our tickets got it nowhere. Same strong arming and disregard for customers. 2. Shoehorning your tech on and blurring the lines between platforms is how you keep your tentacles growing. Who the hell wants powershell and SQL Server for Linux? We just want it to work properly on windows rather than having two problem domains. 3. MSFT's marketing and blogging machine is immense now on the level of May's "strong and stable" which is covering up for reduction in QA and enterprise support while prices are climbing and entire product lines are being burned (windows phone) 4. Fingers in ears. They don't listen to customers. The only way forward is tying you into a monthly sub for everything or forcing you to use their tools or platform. Same turd, different coloured glitter.
- teddywestside 9y ago
  "Most of the MSFT open source stuff is either trash or completely unmaintained." Just google these: Type Script, .Net Core, ASP.NET Core, Visual Studio Code
mschaef 9y ago
> I'm not sure if it's sarcasm or not, but there is no "new" Microsoft. Their sole aim is to use all means to crush competition; Show me a business that doesn't want to win, and I'll show you a business that's not long for this world.
- dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
  That's a fair comment. Most older software companies have disappeared, and the existing ones got so big they tend to misbehave in a similar way (e.g. Adobe). Many of the smaller guys were crushed by Microsoft using its unique position, very often by FUD and other unfair actions. I prefer to support companies that have a moral backbone and criticize those who don't.
  - mschaef 9y ago
    > I prefer to support companies that have a moral backbone and criticize those who don't. What are some of the companies with a moral backbone that you support? I'm genuinely interested to see what that business model looks like in the real world. My own take on Microsoft's historical success in the 80's and 90's is that it's a combination of producing a product people wanted at a time people wanted it (and lack of well formed competition). A state of the art PC in 1991 required separately purchasing an OS, GUI, memory manager, shell, file system utilities, browser, etc. So... while you might argue that it was anticompetitive of Microsoft to bundle these together, there's never been a huge demand for the ability to buy them separately. (Even before Microsoft started bundling all these parts together, the system vendors like Gateway, Micron, and Zeos were doing the bundling for them.)
    - dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
      > What are some of the companies with a moral backbone that you support? I'm genuinely interested to see what that business model looks like in the real world. Out of software companies that survived, Autodesk for example. Most hardware companies - except printer vendors trying to patent/restrict availability of ink cartridges etc. Really, I think it's important to discriminate between fair and unfair business practices. Lumping everything together as "business is business" is harmful to the society especially in the long run.
deepblue08 9y ago
That's a very negative way of looking at the world. Using that type of thinking, any company that makes money and would like its products to be more popular is somehow "bad"
- dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
  What makes a difference is whether you use fair business practices or not. For a very long time Microsoft was engaged in all kinds of shady actions that represent the epitome of corporate greed.

thwarted 9y ago

The ability to have the one app running which contains multiple file system views that I can arrange internally is awesome. It can certainly help with the cognitive overload that sometimes is my alt tab navigation. This is called a multiple-document interface, and it's been Microsoft's preferred method of nesting documents/subwindows within a single application window for a long time — maybe less so with Windows 10 and the "flat" styling. Lack of it was often trotted out as a reason people felt uncomfortable using Linux (and sometimes MacOS) versions of office suites or applications like GIMP (compared to Photoshop, which traditionally used MDI on Windows). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_document_interface https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_document_interface

laumars 9y ago
> This is called a multiple-document interface, and it's been Microsoft's preferred method of nesting documents/subwindows within a single application window for a long time Microsoft moved away from MDI in most of their flag ship products (bar Visual Studio) a long time ago. Eg MS Office was last MDI back in '95. Office 97 was SDI from what I recall.
- badsectoracula 9y ago
  I don't think you can use MDI in Visual Studio anymore, the tabbed interface seems to be the only one available. Although i do remember an IDE (was it Visual Studio?) that could do both MDI and tabs at the same time. Do you consider tabbed interfaces as MDI? I've seen some people do that but i think MDI and tabbed interfaces are too different in terms of functionality to be considered equal.
  - laumars 9y ago
    MDI and tabbed interfaces aren't mutually exclusive but if the master window does not embed resizable child windows (like a traditional MDI interface) then it's not MDI regardless of tabs. I think VS used to be MDI tabbed. It definitely used to be MDI. But I have to admit it's been years since I've last used it. In fact thinking about it now, it's been even longer than I realised (I switched away from Windows development around the time of XP getting released so we're probaby talking close on 15 years. It's scary how fast time flies).